I gather the weather’s been rather warm further south, but here on the UK’s most northern inhabited island there’s a strong wind blowing in from the arctic ocean.

The sun is shining brightly however and for the next month the daylight will only briefly dim just after midnight.

I have had a home here on Unst for the last 15 years and as an artist I can think of nowhere else I would rather be. My studio is in one of the buildings of an old RAF Cold War base. I have space aplenty in which to work. And when I needed room to lay out a 30 foot diameter installation I was loaned a huge loft above the brewery that has been set up on the site.

Not only do I love being in the northern isles, for their unique blend of remoteness and community, I am also in and of a place sufficiently removed from the concerns and fashions of urban western life in which I can most effectively think creatively.

Some of my work develops out of the place I am in – the wildlife, geology and weather. Much however could be pursued further south. It is what I call ‘visual theology’ – an attempt to use non-verbal imagery to ask spiritual and religious questions, but my being on Unst I think gives it an added impetus.

At present I am working on 15 images for Gloucester Cathedral to be shown during the church season of Lent next year. They are a meditation on wars and conflicts of the last 100 years in the context of the story of the trial, torture and crucifixion of Jesus. What more appropriate place in which to work than a former and redundant military establishment.


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